


To Say the Things I Want to Say to You

by ABookAndACoffee



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, Break Up, F/M, I am just writing my feelings lately, Post-ACOWAR, is basically the excuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 06:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11098833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ABookAndACoffee/pseuds/ABookAndACoffee
Summary: Nesta and Cassian have a dramatic and necessary break up.





	To Say the Things I Want to Say to You

There was something about the way that he looked at her. Something in the way that he told her he cared without having to say the words, told her he would always be there and promised her the world if only she would keep looking at him like that. 

In the beginning, there had been a racing heart, a warmth in her core, Nesta’s thoughts finding Cassian when she didn’t want them to. His glaring good looks had softened into something more as she grew to know him. If she’d been more like Feyre, she might have tried to paint him. If she’d been more like Elain, she might have given him shy, flirtatious glances. But she was like neither of them, something wholly apart, somehow more and less and never quite what others wanted. 

And yet. He had wanted her. 

The beginning had been everything she never knew she could want. She found herself seeking him out, looking for his approval, words spilling from her lips before she knew they had left. Others around her talked about marriage and love and which man would be a worthy, fair husband. She had never cared for those things, because the value they might bring seemed unlikely to be worth the trade-off. All Nesta saw in marriage was the potential raise in social station, but love? That was unlikely, and being uninterested in such a thing didn’t help matters. 

So Nesta shrugged when she found herself in a relationship with Cassian. She had stated the thing casually when Feyre asked. This was never something she was going to look for, so when she had it, it held perhaps a different value to her. 

She realizes now that it was never meant to last. Not for the time being, at least. There is too much between them and too much she needs to discover. About herself, about this new world she has been forced to inhabit. Nesta wants to cut the ties that she feels binding her, ties she never wanted or asked for. Let alone expected. And so this should be a simple undertaking. 

And she needs to tell him now. There is nothing stopping her, really. Nesta has never shied away from a difficult task. So she tells herself, as she walks into the sitting room, where she knows he is waiting for her. 

He stands when she enters, his smile tempered by curiosity and fear at her formality. It has been ages since she sent for him. Usually their meetings are hurried and the result of little more than an exchanged glance while in the company of others. Her summons today felt exactly like that – a summons, a formal request to meet and discuss business. Which is like the Nesta he knows, but from before. The Nesta whose skin he knows as if he had been born in it himself? She is nowhere to be seen. 

“Cassian,” she says. She gestures to his chair, inviting him to sit back down. Her posture is erect, her hands folded in her lap, her ankles crossed. He has held those ankles near his lips, bare, looking up the length of her leg to where she lay, mouth open and panting and utterly taken by pleasure. He shakes the memory away. This is not going to be one of those afternoons. 

“Nesta, fancy meeting you here,” Cassian starts, with a grin, of course. 

They are in Feyre’s house. Neutral space, so Nesta thought. If there is one thing she can count on him for, it is using his humor to try to break the already-obvious tension. It isn’t going to work this time, and she nearly pities him the effort. 

“I am going away for a while. To the Day Court. Elain needs me there,” Nesta says. She sits in the chair as if she has been erected from it, not daring to give off a hint that she is nervous. 

“When do you want me to meet you?” Cassian asks. 

Nesta blinks. She should have known he would make this assumption. “No. I’m going alone. And I won’t be back for a long time.” She pauses, giving him time to understand what she is saying. When a familiar veil begins to drop over his features, she knows he has gotten there, much faster than she anticipated. She has always underestimated him in this way, and keeps herself from smiling at this reminder of one of the ways he has kept her from becoming too bored with him. 

She has never thought she’d be in a relationship like this, so she has certainly never thought she’d have to end it. When the realization came to her, she was surprised at how much it terrified her. To hurt him, to break off what had become the most stable, comforting relationship she had ever known. While it seemed logical and like the only thing she could do, the thought of saying the words was another matter. But Elain was waiting for her. Is still waiting, along with the potential for a new, freer life. 

In fact, her nonchalance belies a certain fear of loss. So she is deciding now to leave and spare herself potential heartache, and all of it rooted in something she never wanted in the first place. 

“I just… I need time, Cassian.” She uses his full name. She has been out of the habit of doing that for ages, it feels like. “I need to be on my own, to see more of the world, figure out my place in it. I know you think you are helping. You aren’t.” 

He flinches at the implication that he has held her back in any way, when all he has wanted to do is help her transition. Physically, with her magic and her power, she would never need help from anyone. But Cassian knows that there are many other kinds of strength, all of them important, and there are other ways he tries to insert himself. 

“It’s not that I think you don’t care. Or that… I think you aren’t trying. I know you are. But there are some things I have to do on my own.” She waits, seeing if her attempt to soften the blow has helped in any way. 

When he gets off the chair and on his knees in front of her, she knows it hasn’t. Nesta moves until her back hits the chair, her severe posture lost. Her hands fall to the seat cushion, prepared to launch herself away if necessary. 

“Nesta, if I have done anything wrong, you would tell me.” Cassian places his hands on her knees and she looks quickly towards the door. 

“I’m not happy, Cassian. Not like this.” Nesta gestures down towards herself as if this will explain everything. To anyone else, it might not do. To Cassian, it says everything. Before she knows what he is doing, he has clasped her hands between his own. 

“I will wait for you,” he says. And that is it. This is all that he can say to the woman who has challenged him for months now, to the woman he would pledge everything to, if only she would let him. 

There is nothing left between them. Nothing will repair what she has sundered, and nothing will break what he has welded with his vow. 

Nesta gives him a short nod, the best that she can do for now. It costs her, to make this gesture. But she can see what she has purchased in the way his shoulders square, his grip on her hands becomes more sure, the pain from kneeling on the hard floor seems to lessen. 

And in this she already knows that she has made the right choice. He will take too much of her right now. Until she has grown and become who she is supposed to be, he will take and take, and it won’t be his fault. She will give, and she has never thought herself capable of this. But in the knowing she becomes stronger. 

“I will see you again. Someday. I might meet someone else.” His nostrils flare slightly while she speaks, but she continues. “But I want you to know that I’m grateful. I see what you do, for everyone here. And I’m honored that you would think of me.” 

It is Cassian’s turn to nod, and in doing so he grasps her hands tighter before letting them go and rising to his feet. 

He is walking out of the door when she speaks again. “Cassian.” He turns towards her. “I will find you. One day. I don’t know what the circumstances will be. But I will find you.” 

He leaves, and she breathes a sigh that is equal parts relief and heartbreak.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this with copious amounts of wine and little editing. Normally the ratio is reversed. Come find me on [ tumblr](http://abookandacoffee.tumblr.com/), comments appreciated.


End file.
